Individuology
How you can Learn, Think, & Share more effectively!
Why a new 'ology'?
People Problems Persist - in spite of millions of sincere people, like you, 'professional' and 'private' trying to solve them, many, crucial people problems persist.
Examples: Day to day encounters, like bullying, to the Tucson, Arizona killings, the Columbine High School, & Virginia Tech massacres as well as corporate, congressional, and international greed; suicide, homicide, oppression, tyranny etc.
People have tried to solve these problems with both Category or Type Based Thinking, and Statistical Reasoning. Neither has worked, nor has dependence on academics, which is
Why some new thinking tools are needed.
At a more personal level, many of us, and our loved ones, are not achieving all the satisfactions and fulfillments that we are capable of achieving. In some cases these frustrations lead to personal violence. A question we can all ask ourselves is:
Is my life going completely well in all areas?
So what is Individuology?
Individuology is a new way of thinking about people problems.
It starts, continues, and ends with 1 and only 1 reality - Every living breathing human being is unique!
For the last few hundred, indeed thousand years, we have thought about people problems by putting people into categories, or classes, or groups, and then reasoning about those groups. So we have rich & poor; Catholics, Protestants, Jews, Muslims, Atheists, Buddhists, etc.; liberals & conservatives; democrats, republicans, and now libertarians, & Independents; as well as men & women; young & old; etc. etc.
When we do this, we ASSUME, that every member of the particular group believes, values, thinks, feels, and acts the same way. Reality emphatically denies this. These mental categories are exactly that 'mental' categories. The only reality that exists in our real existential world is Individuals! Each is Unique!
While we struggle to confront or avoid this reality, the commercial world is way ahead of us. In the 1980's Burger King announced: "We do it your way"! Stock companies, try to convince you their way of doing business is very specific to you as a unique customer. Yet Psychology, education, most social programs, and much of medicine treats you based on the category that they have assigned to you. That's right, you have little say in the matter, they assign you to one of their categories. Perhaps the worst case of all is psychiatry, and their mindless DSM.
The roots of this are not malicious but rather a sincere desire to find workable answers. Since Aristotle, from the bar-room to the barrister court, the basic mode of reasoning was:
All men are......
Then a new mathematical discipline emerged called statistics. When it made a pronouncement, it was:
Most men are......
It started off as a very valid search for truth. Indeed when used properly, it has enabled us to make many, many significant breakthroughs.
Statistics starts off, not with All of us but with what they call a 'sample'. Let's say you are standing at an airport gate and watching passengers, and which hand they use to carry their luggage. You watch 100 passengers, which becomes your 'sample'. Let's say 10% or 10 of them appear to be left handed. The statistical leap of faith is that IF you watch a different 100 people, 10% or 10 of them will be left-handed. There is no proof of this, just an assumption, based on the 'authority of statistics'.
Like a paradigm, it is a 'whole mindset' for approaching certain types of problems, situations or contexts.
This may sound complicated but it's quite simple.
Paradigms usually contain certain rules, often unspoken yet very firm, for how to think, or question things, ideas, and/or people, even what specific words can & can't be used.
Examples of Contexts:
- Being in a grocery store
- Being at a board meeting
- or a wedding
- or at Aunt Nellie's house
- or in court
- or on death row
- or on spring break
- Political Correctness - dictates many questions that can't be asked
and specific words that are not allowed by it's creators.
A powerful metaphor for understanding the paradigm of Individuology is:
The metaphor of the Map vs the Territory.
This distinguishes 2 very distinct types of knowledge. Nature made & Human made.
Private Maps, Models or Specific Views (Conceptual Abstractions)
Google Mapview
Mapquest view.
As our private maps get closer to the shared reality, our lives become more manageable.
For more details see my web page:World views
and/or
my blog entry Experiential & Abstract World views
Every paradigm contains within it specific Values, Principles, Models, Techniques, and possibly Tools.
Why are these important?
- Values - when we have conflicting opportunities, which do we chose?
- Principles - To implement our values, what do we do?
- Techniques, and possibly Tools - We need specific techniques to implement those principles in daily life. Sometimes, those techniques become solidified into tools.
- Models - How we think the world fits together.
How do these apply to Individuology?
- Values - In the new Individuology paradigm this is the most important value:
Respect for Individuals AS Individuals, NOT simply as members of a group.
This works both ways for inclusion & exclusion. Whenever we treat an Individual only as a member or non-member of a group; we disrespect that Individual. That includes racial or nationality groups, political groups, sexual groups, professional groups etc.
- Principles - To implement our primary value of respect for the power of Individuals, what do we do?
- Necessary & Sufficient Causality. (No mysterious, unverifiable, forces like Id, Ego, SuperEgo, Introjects, will to fail, etc.!). Our one experiential world is like a huge flywheel - it will continue going where it is going unless a Force is applied to change that direction. That Force must have BOTH a Direction to make a change, AND an Amount significant enough to make a difference. Only real Individuals, not abstract ideas, can provide that Force.
For more details see: Necessary & Sufficient Causality
- Dynamic Thresholds (Relative - Absolutes). (Tipping points)
Since Individuals differ widely between Individuals AND each Individual differs over time, we need to address this directly.
See: Dynamic Thresholds
and Relationship Boundaries
- Techniques, and possibly Tools - We need specific techniques to apply the principles of 5N&SC + Dynamic Thresholds. Sometimes, those techniques become solidified into tools, such as Questions:
- Who are the Individuals involved?
- What are their specific motivations?
- What specific contexts exist?
- What dynamic thresholds are involved?
- Clean Language - A technique for truly listening to Individuals.
- Models - How we think the world fits together.
- An Individual Person Model - A model for understanding Individual People, i.e. what makes them 'tick' as an Individual! What is their unique driving forces, and how do they express those driving forces in their specific internal and external behaviors. What is each Individual's values hierarchy, relationships, and especially the dynamic boundaries between them all.
See: Person
- A Community Model
What is the relationship between the Individual and Community?
I believe we are not in life alone, we need each other. This is, in my mind, further evident from our many Individual differences. Each of us sees life from a slightly different viewpoint. Each viewpoint adds to and simultaneously blinds us to the viewpoints of others, so yes, we strongly need each other.
I further believe we can feel personal satisfaction by our isolated achievements, like writing a book, but we do not experience fulfillment until our efforts impact others in our personally chosen 'community'.
How we contribute to our 'chosen' community.
I believe as Individuals we must both choose our 'community' AND our specific contribution to it. When any other group, including the government, (except for temporary military necessity) assigns you a role in how you will contribute, that is, in most cases, tyranny! You, the Individual, must choose your preferred community & How you will contribute to it.
What is the cost of NOT treating Individuals as Individuals, but assuming they are identical to every other member of the group we've assigned them to ?
- Where the statistical approach doesn't work:
Because 25% of Individuals are considered obese, some want to force or mandate all 100% of Individuals, including the 75% who are NOT obese, to follow the arbitrary dietary rules they chose to make up, such as which foods and how much of each.
This is outright tyranny!
- Where the Individual approach did work:
Refrigerator example:
In 1989 I was working with some adult incest survivors who were having a real struggle make their lives work. One woman, let's call her Helen, with a 4 year old daughter was trying very hard. She had several part time jobs. But even with food stamps, rent assistance, etc. she wasn't making it. I sat down with her and really listened to her Individual story. She would go every 2 days to the grocery store to buy food. Much of it later went bad. I asked her why she didn't put the groceries in her refrigerator? She replied: I don't have one. Huh? This seemed really important to her. So I asked around within her community and found a woman who was getting a new refrigerator. We made arrangements to pick up her existing refrigerator and give it to Helen. This enabled her to shop less frequently, and almost no food went bad ever again. The reduced trips to the grocery store, freed her up to take on longer hours at her part time job.
Another friend, also believing in the Individual approach, gave her a used bicycle.
Fast forward... Two years later, Helen had a full time job and her 1st ever, used, car!
Bureaucrats of the statistical mindset would conclude that we need a multi-million $ program to buy all people below the poverty level a refrigerator and a bicycle, Duh!
What will it take to change our world?
Millions of Individuals:
- Achieving both satisfaction & fulfillment of their personal dreams by enriching their personally chosen communities.
- Respecting others in the pursuit of their dreams.
- A re-definition of:
- What Knowledge is... see:
What is Knowledge?
- How is it created?
- How is it improved?
- How is it shared?
- and How Knowledge is transferred both from Individual to Individual and from generation to generation in a particular community. See: How is Knowledge Transferred?
Note: This is a significant change from the current power paradigm of Objective Knowledge (determined by a panel of experts) vs Subjective Knowledge (what each of us knows personally). The new paradigm is Personal Knowledge and Shared Knowledge.
Personal note:
This discipline of Individuology and it's principles, techniques, & tools could also be applied to all other 'Individual' things and events, such as animals, plants, trees, and perhaps even rocks, and our chemical environment. However, my personal focus is exclusively on Individual People. If there comes a time when all Individual people on the planet, have adequate shelter, food, and dignified living conditions, then and only then, will I turn my attention to animals and others issues...
Topic Related pages:
Primary Ideas flowing from making Individuals, You, the center of our investigations:
- The crucial distinction between our one shared experiential world, and each Individuals privately constructed mental world is discussed at:
Worldviews.
and/or the blog entry Experiential & Abstract World views
- Examining Necessary & Sufficient Causality in our one shared experiential world is at: Causality.
- Since as Individuals our experiences and personal limits vary significantly, both between Individuals, and within each Individual over time I discuss these personal thresholds at:
Dynamic Thresholds and Relationship Boundaries
- Finally, when we attempt to share our personal worlds with others the issue of Separating Meanings from Words, and Intentions from Actions is covered at:
Sharing.
Comments:
Last Updated: Thursday, Feb. 16, 2012 11:51 AM
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